TN photo electoral rolls to be announced in two phases

Chennai, Feb 2 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Naresh Gupta today announced that draft photo electoral rolls for the entire state would be published in two phases from end of March.

The CEO, who reviewed the progress in the preparation of photo electoral rolls for Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Dharmapuri districts, said draft rolls for 15 districts would be published by March end and for the remaining 15 districts by the third week of April.

He said the Election Commission had directed appointment of Booth Level Officers -- one for each polling area, as a permanent arrangement for ensuring up-to-date maintenance of electoral rolls which would include inter alia identification of dead and shifted electors, and deletion of their names.

Stating Dharmapuri had made substantial progress in the process with 85.17 per cent, he said Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur were still lagging behind.

Mr Gupta said district election officers had been instructed to delete the names of electors who had shifted their residences after issue of notice and making local enquiries.

He said after the current round of taking photos of electors, there would be another round for verification.

UNI